I've started trying out the ships from this mod and have encountered something odd.

The Lance Cruiser seems to have twin shielding: one AI-controlled fixed shield, which raises and vents on its own (separate from a ship-wide vent), and a regular omni-shield controllable by the player).

Adding onto this odd behaviour is the fact that auto-fire does not seem to function on the ship. Hardpoint mounts, front turrets, rear turrets, small, large, etc. Even with auto-fire enabled for that weapon group.

Do these sound like working-as-designed and/or known issues? Just wondering if it's the mod itself or a possible (known) mod conflict causing this stuff.

Just to make sure I tested this again on my end, and it is working as intended, autofire groups work normally, and the "secondary shield" only activates when the Lance's shipsystem is in use (even if the ship is not controlled by the player).

I'm assuming it might be a mod conflict, for a couple of reasons.

The Lance does have a secondary shield, technically a module (like a station) which was made for its Ram Drive shipsytem (meant to activate its shields as it rushes forward). However the behaviour you describe of the shield flicking on and off should be impossible since the "module's" custom AI is blanked. By doing this the module should not react to anything, with one exception, the activation of the movement system of its parent vessel, where the module's custom AI is told to turn its shields on, if its parent vessel (the Lance-class itself) is using its shipsystem and the module's shields are currently off, and to turn its shields off if its parent vessel is not using its shipsystem and the module's shields are on.

In this case, for it to react on its own, it would need to have its AI reset to default, or something is very wrong with the uploaded version of the mod, but that seems unlikely, I would have expected this bug to be reported earlier in that case... do you have any mod that alters ship AI?.

The autofire issue is even weirder, since besides the module, the Lance is a completely normal ship, it doesn't use a custom AI at all. No idea what could be causing it.

Both issues make me think it is a mod compatibility problem, but I can't be completely sure, since I can't replicate it. Also, I would guess this behaviour extends to the Halberd and Angon classes, since they work in a similar way.

Could you post your mod list, and your save?. Since this seems worthy of a hotfix, instead of something minor to be pushed back to the next content patch, or at the very least, list a mod incompatibility on the first page.

I thought the targeting/autofire issue might be related to the shield since there are hints the game considers them two independent entities (i.e., when you retreat, your shield gets its own retreat message as if it were a ship). So I thought whatever AI controlled the automatic shield might also be controlling the autofire, and subsequently messing it up.

After some testing, I figured out the culprit: the AI overhaul mod. Remove it, the autofire works fine now. So take note in case any future users of your mod encounter a similar issue.

Small, if numerous changes, including changes to accommodate a better integration with DynaSector.

Mainly balance changes (just to not say minor nerf bat pass), and some fixes to potential exploits...no more Paragon bowling..., and of course some extra content... including MORE Angon-class variant skins, new hullmods, and WEAPON SOUNDS (Special thanks to MesoTroniK for his help with the sounds), full changelog in the section below.

As stated above, several times, the mod has been integrated into DynaSector (Special thanks to Dark Revenant for taking his time doing this), so go and download it.

I’d like to preface this post by saying that the sprite work is good, the weapons look very nice, and the weapons themselves are generally balanced. However, almost every single Tyrador ship I used is overpowered or badly designed in some way.

The Koncerz has way too many medium mounts, and one of them’s even a synergy. Put a sabot pod, a phase lance, and a pulse laser on that thing, you will win any duel with anything smaller than a cruiser. On the other hand, the viability of this frigate in direct combat is determined entirely by whether or not you find a Sabot pod; if you don’t get to cheat in the flux war, you lose. Or, you could run it as a 3x Graviton beam support boat, which is boring and also probably overpowered because 3 Graviton beams is enough to lock down any other frigate in the game. The turret loadout needs to be reconsidered.

The Woomera has 20 to 30 more OP than it should have. It’s got 4 small energies, 2 medium energies, and 2 fighter bays; baseline minimum OP is 5 per small mount, 10 per medium, 20 per large, and 0 per fighter bay, so baseline OP for the Woomera is (4*5) + (2*10) = 40. It’s got 105 OP, 65 over baseline. In comparison, the Drover is 40 OP over baseline, the Medusa is 40 OP over baseline, the Enforcer is 40 OP over baseline, the Hammerhead is 45 OP over baseline, and the Harbinger is 55 over baseline. Chop off some OP.

At first I thought the Sabre class was just really bad ship design. A 360° large turret is incredibly powerful and just slapping one on a destroyer that doesn’t have some sort of downside is generally not a good idea. Putting a 360° turret on a ship which is both very maneuverable and has a Phase Skimmer seems completely pointless; you’ll always be able to have the Sabre pointing where you want it anyway. However, further meditation upon the Sabre has revealed to me that it is a genius design based upon a next-level piloting paradigm.

Firstly, the Sabre has two forward-pointing medium missile hard points. But the thing about missiles is that they don’t have to be pointed forward to be effective; homing missiles don’t care if you fire them sideways, and Tyrador even has these deployable single-wing fighter packages that go in missile slots, so there’s even less reason to keep your missiles pointed forwards. Secondly, the Sabre has a medium energy turret that only covers a very narrow arc directly to its stern. This is overkill for point defence, the only thing it’d be zapping is Salamanders. Wouldn’t it be great if that medium energy turret was pointed forward, so you could supplement your large turret with a phase lance or ion beam? Are you seeing it now?

If you don’t need to keep your missiles pointed forwards, and you want to bring your medium energy to bear, all you have to do is rotate the Sabre 180 degrees. Yes, the Sabre is a ship designed to be flown BACKWARDS. Not only does this bring the rear medium energy forwards for more firepower, your engine is also brought forward under the protective cover of your shields, so even in the thick of combat your engine will never be shot out by Salamanders or fighters. Alternatively, the Sabre’s turret loadout is so bad that it’s driven me insane. I can’t tell.

The Kestros is slightly too much. A cruiser with forward firepower consisting of one large energy hardpoint and two medium energy turrets boosted by HEF would be great enough on its own; the two built-in fighter wings make it amazing, especially considering it only costs 20 supplies to deploy. It should be bumped up to 25 supplies, or maybe take an OP nerf.

The Amentum has 3 fighter bays and Reserve Deployment. This alone would cause problems, even if it was limited to vanilla fighters. That it exists in the same mod as the Scimitar LPC, the Javelin LPC, and the Fleet Server hullmod? It’s like some kind of sick joke. Having 6 Scimitars constantly roaming around the battlefield, with reinforcements that never stop spawning no matter how many you kill, is absurd. Being able to dump a burst of 30 Lotus torpedoes on something is like opening up the console and using the kill command. On top of that, the Amentum has way more OP than even the Mora despite having a much lighter armament; the Amentum has 145 OP, the Mora has 115, the Heron has 100. Replace Reserve Deployment with literally anything else and hack off at least 30 OP.

The Scimitar is still crazy, even post-nerf. It tears through fighters, frigates, destroyers, and cruisers alike, and this cannot possibly be blamed on the Strike Command 3 bug because it has no projectile guns, only beams and missiles. It could lose both tac lasers and one of the annihilator pods and still be worth 15 OP. Additionally, the phase lance is on a 360° turret, which is very wrong, and there’s a noticable gap between the tac laser’s weapon sprite and the point at which the tac laser beam starts.

The Javelin is also crazy, because it’s a source of infinite Lotus torpedoes in massive numbers. Lotus torpedoes aren’t game-breaking as missiles mostly because they’re limited by ammo and you can’t fire them in massive salvos. When a single cruiser can launch them in waves of 12 or 18 at a time, over and over and over, they become overwhelming. Some missiles just shouldn't be mounted to fighters.

I didn’t end up playing around with the capitals much, but please do not put plasma jets on a capital ship. It’s not going to work out.

The Adze has too much logistical capability for a 3 supply per month ship. If you put Modular Fuel Tanks on it, it has more fuel capacity than a Dram, the cargo of a Shepherd, and the personnel carrying capacity of a combat destroyer, all in the same ship. It doesn’t even have civilian hull! It should cost at least 5 or 6 supplies per month.

Atrio has two open markets; one Tyrador, one Independent. Is this a bug?

I think the Scimitar was nerfed in the wrong way. Instead of piling clunky nerfs on it I would have increased its OP cost and then seen what kind of adjustments are needed. I really liked the "pocket frigate" concept, but its being nerfed into just another heavy fighter. Restore the Scimitar's power and make it 30+ OP so a carrier can't fit them in every slot (without making major sacrifices at least).

Only got a little time in with the mod, and i'm not very good, a few things:

1. Easily one of my favorite mods. There's lots of high quality ones, but I like that this one adds certain things I felt the base game was missing while not being quite as jarring of a transition visually.

2. That said I do agree it needs some more balance. Sabre feels like cheating. Granted i put sabot pods on it, but hell even with harpoons or something else that thing is nuts (had a large weapon of my choice, 2 sabot pods, PD, expanded missile racks, a hanger with a 0 cost squad, and between 5-15 vents.

Personally I'd suggest starting with locking the large slot forward, upping the deploy cost, and lowering the total AP. Hell in a way the idea of great slots but not enough AP to easily use them all to max potential could do a lot here.

3. The adze is probably one of my favorite ships period, although it's also a little too good. It seriously bugs me that many freighters/tankers in most of the game are actually just passive upgrades for all that they actually affect your decisions. The Adze fills a very nice niche in the early game (similar to the gemini) in that it can actually be used in your fleet and handles it flexibility perfectly.

I grabbed one early on, threw a hanger on it and some 0 AP fighters, and put a cargo mod in (filled out the PD and that's it + capacitors). Had it follow my carrier around along with my controller and really enjoyed actually having my cargo design MATTER, and the better feeling was when I finally upgraded my capacity I could rip out the modular cargo mod and gain enough AP to finish kitting it out with some salamanders and max capacitors (had i had the money I was going to put a 10-15 point fighter in instead of the free drones).

That said, that's a LOT of flexibility for the cost. It's cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, still has lots of AP even with the cargo space being used, and costs 3 to deploy, making it an absurdly efficient carrier. Economy in Starsector is pretty busted by default, but I'd suggest adding at least 10-20k to the price and dropping the AP by 5-10 so that you're less likely to feel super safe if you bring it to the front lines while it's chugging your loot around. I'm terrible with deploy costs, but 3 is certainly too cheap (i'd gladly pay 5..maybe more?)

Usually I don't post if I have nothing relevant to say, I do lurk and check replies (heh, I probably should change my profile picture to a lurker, I've thought of doing so several times...), but since I'm posting...

Thanks for the feedback, I'm taking it into account, even if I don't reply as soon as it is posted.

I'll be attaching the current changelog for the next version, keep in mind that this does not mean I'm not adding more stuff or stopped balancing some stuff, this is strictly what is already in the game coded and functional, but perhaps lacking a bit of polish (as an example Orchids do not have new graphics yet).

Nor should you expect this update to come any time soon; honestly, if there's a major game crashing bug/exploit I'll stop the new content development, fix the issue and update the mod as version 1.5.0, otherwise I'll just keep developing until I'm happy enough on how far I've progressed with my large TODO list (sorry keeping that a secret, because I like spoiling stuff when it's nearer to completion, so I have something to show)... or the game updates, whichever happens sooner.Patches are a different thing though, but those won't include balance changes or new content; they would be named version 1.4.1, and would be saved for stuff like a sudden incompatibility with another mod that can/should be fixed on my end, or small easy to fix bugs that are still noteworthy (unlike the autofit exploit, mentioned below).

Changelog:

v.1.5.0 DEV

-Implemented "timed expiration" system for weapon spawned drones: -Affects Kulbeda, Corvo and Kabura-ya drones. -Does not affect Caltrop-class phase mine drones. -Drones affected by the system loose their CR constantly (even if there are no enemies on the map) at about 1% per second. -CR dependent effects: -CR = 0%: drone gets a high random chance to explode on the spot(adds a bit extra randomness so they don't all explode exactly at the same time). -CR ? 1%: drone suddenly stops functioning. -CR ? 5%: drone will try self destruct by ramming into a nearby enemy vessel, doing low kinetic damage (mostly visual). -CR > 5%: drone behaves normally. -Renamed Chakram's "Ion Pulser" to "Ion Micropulser"; the name change was reverted accidentally and went unnoticed. -Added the Ayllo-class Frigate, a scout/surveying themed drone tender ship that uses built-in weapon spawned drones. -Added the Kabura-ya-class Scout Drone, a built-in weapon spawned drone, it lacks the "Low Resolution Sensors" hullmod found in the other weapon spawned drones. -Added the "Drone Swarm" shipsystem, the system reloads the drone spawner weapons; currently used by Ayllo and Kestros classes. -Added "Kamikaze" shipsystems for Kulbeda, Corvo and Kabura-ya drones. -Added Dmod "Damaged Particle Conduits", a milder version of "Unreliable Subsystems" that also blocks "Hardened Subsystems" and "Integrated Particle Conduits" using hullmods, used by (P) skins and can be rolled in recovered TSC ships. -"Integrated Particle Conduits" hullmod blocks "Hardened Subsystems" hullmod. -Fixed autofit hullmod installing minor exploit (not sure why would someone want to run a TT Amentum with fleet server when it will only give you a debuff for 25 OP; guess getting a TT skin with Graviton Lensing or similar hullmod works). -Corrected OP values for carriers; was using outdated formula for launch bays. -Added Kulbeda Drone Pod Launcher weapon, a large sized missile weapon that deploys several Kulbeda drones. -Added Corvo Drone Pod Launcher weapon, a large sized missile weapon that deploys several Corvo drones. -Added Orchid-class Torpedo Launcher weapon, a small sized missile weapon with 2 Orchid Torpedoes, each torpedo does about 55% the damage of a Lotus Torpedo. -Added new graphical effect to Plasma Lance and Warden PD System projectiles.

Keep in mind that this changelog can, and most likely will, change; some of the stuff included here is WIP, specially the Drone racks drone "ammo" count, since I'm considering adding reloading to them. A lot of the stuff is also depending on things I've wanted to make for a long time, like the Drone pod launchers, balancing them depended on adding the timers, otherwise they get too spammy; the Kestros drone's reimplementation, which is now much closer to my original design/intention for it (it still needs its own unique combat drones though).Some WIP changes are not listed, like reverting Plasma Jets to Maneuvering Jets for the Claymore-class, or giving Targeting Feed to the Amentum, in both cases I would like to go for something more unique.For the Scimitar I don't think I'll nerf it further (OP cost not subject to statement), since I would rather keep it at about the same strength it currently has, but further changes will happen, I've planned for quite some time to give it a new modular weapon, a new TSC medium energy weapon, which at the moment there are none, this will likely end reducing its alpha strike capacity, but that's desired.

i love the concept of the scimitar, but the tachyon lance is far too powerful a weapon for any fighter to have. if you were to replace it with an IR pulse laser, it would probably be balanced without having to change anything else about the ship.

the tactical lasers do seem a bit redundant though, they can't pummel shields, they don't act as point defense, and the rockets already shred armor. maybe replace them both with IR pulse lasers, and the tachyon lance with a LR point defense laser?

i love the concept of the scimitar, but the tachyon lance is far too powerful a weapon for any fighter to have. if you were to replace it with an IR pulse laser, it would probably be balanced without having to change anything else about the ship.

the tactical lasers do seem a bit redundant though, they can't pummel shields, they don't act as point defense, and the rockets already shred armor. maybe replace them both with IR pulse lasers, and the tachyon lance with a LR point defense laser?

Or a new powerful weapon...Because...Nemo needs his ridiculous 6 scimitars of Death.